Ask Dr. Robyn: How do I build confidence in my child? Part 1

If we can build a healthy self-esteem in our children, and allow them to make mistakes in the safety of home and family, then I believe these go a long way to building confidence.

Dear Dr Robyn:

I’m 42, single mother of a 2-1/2yr old. She’s driving me mental. She’s got horrible separation anxiety, which I don’t understand since I’ve never abandoned her or threatened her with abandonment such as “get off the sidewalk or I’m leaving you here”, (punishable by whipping, imo). I still breastfeed her (would take two sticks of dynamite and a crowbar to get her off at this time) and we co-sleep (one bedroom, no room for two beds, and it’s warmer in the winter). I serve the meal but I don’t push her to eat – my rule is “eat what you need, leave the rest but if you ask for more, you have to eat it all”. At 51lbs, she’s not in danger of withering away because she misses a couple meals. She’s toilet trained but if she has an accident, it’s no big deal unless I just asked her if she needed the potty and she said no (happens too often, actually, where she says “no” and not even 5 min later is peeing her pants).

I wonder it’s because I simply don’t have time – I live in the bush in a wreck of a house that I’m trying to get done up as much as possible before the winter bites down (minor things like insulating the ceilings and figuring out how to prevent my water supply from freezing and where I’m going to find the money to get firewood in). I have a border collie mix puppy that needs daily work if he’s not going to totally destroy my house and become a menace. There’s regular housework to be done on top of the renovating. And I will admit that I’m selfish – I *must* have time to myself to watch DIY network, HGTV, Food Network, and Space channel or I lose what little patience I have.

*sigh* So yeah, there’s a lot going on here – but she’s so anxious and nervous. Doesn’t help that her voice is annoyingly high-pitched and unsteady and strangulated so it sounds like she’s whining all the time. Along with chewing noisily with the mouth open, whining is one thing I cannot tolerate. I’m hearing impaired (I tend to yell when I talk) so that thin wheedling just below the level of my hearing is infuriating.

I need to work backward – ie, “Your daughter needs x to develop a healthy self-confidence and independence”, and then I can see that “Okay, if I need to do x, then I have to stop doing y for it to work”. See what I mean?

I hope you can help,

threenorns
(Silja)